Science Fiction and Fantasy: Looking at Information Technology and the Information Rights of the Individual, Saturday, 28 June 2008, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm in the Anaheim Convention Center, 304 A/B, Anaheim, CA (Disneyland) Distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors discussed their ideas about old and new technologies, how technology impacts humanity and future implications for privacy rights. Authors were Cory Doctorow, Eric Flint, Vernor Vinge, and Brandon Sanderson. Vernor Vinge was first to address the audience. Vernor Vinge, who argued back in 1993 that “we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence” (“The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era“) began the session with a warning of a possible coming “Informational Dark Age.” He mentioned that Digital Rights Management…
Tag: ala
Next Generation Catalog Interest Group Meeting
Monday, June 30th, 2008 Anaheim Convention Center Sharon M. Shafer, Vice Chair, welcomed everyone to the 3rd meeting of the Next Generation Catalog Interest Group. The program panelists included Karen G. Schneider, Equinox Software, Sara Davidson, University of California, Merced, and Amy Kautzman, University of California, Davis, “Running a Free and Open Source Software ILS does Not Equate to a Tightrope Act with No Net†Karen G. Schneider began her talk with a definition of open source software from Wikipedia. Karen explained that open source software is free to use, free to download, and free to modify. Support is also available from the open source community or from a vendor. Karen further stated that “development†happens out in the “wild,†occurring on IRC, listservs, etc. It is important that development no longer take place in silos. With open source software problems can be quickly resolved. There is no need to…
Getting Started with Drupal
Getting Started with Drupal (a.k.a. Drupal4LITA Bootcamp) Preconference, June 27th, 2008 Anaheim Public Library Cary Gordon of the Cherry Hill Company, a vendor specializing in support of open source software, gave an extremely detailed introduction to Drupal 6.2, the latest version of the open source content management system. The attendees came from a variety of library types, including academic, public, and special, and with a variety of experience levels with the system. Flash drives with the XAMPP server/database combination pre-installed were distributed along with the components for a Drupal installation. The morning focused on setting up Apache, the MySQL database, some PHP settings, and a basic install of Drupal. The afternoon covered modules (the building blocks of a Drupal site), user permissions, basic content creation, and an introduction to Drupal’s specialized vocabulary: nodes, taxonomies, menus, blocks. The program concluded with an excellent list of Drupal-related resources available on the web….
If We Don’t Call it Distance Learning, Does it Exist?
If We Don’t Call it Distance Learning, Does it Exist? Saturday, 8 am-noon, Paradise Pier Hotel in Anaheim, CA (Disneyland) Presenters: Kim Duckett, Librarian for Digital Technologies and Learning, North Carolina State University Libraries, Chad Haefele, Reference Librarian, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Samantha Hines, Assistant Professor, Distance Education Coordinator and Social Sciences Librarian, University of Montana, Howard Carter, Associate Professor and Manager, Instructional Support Services, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and Harvey R. Gover, 2008 ACRL/Haworth Press National Distance Learning Librarian, Acting Chair and Consultant to the Distance Learning Section Guidelines Committee, and Assistant Campus Librarian, Max E. Benitz Memorial Library, Washington State University Tri-Cities. Kim Duckett believes librarians should adopt a philosophy of blended librarianship. Duckett says a focus on distance learners will lead to better library experiences for all because traditional learners are becoming more like distance learners as more and more students receive their education online….
Ultimate Debate 2008
Thanks to the Internet Resources and Services Interest Group (IRSIG), there was another Ultimate Debate panel at ALA Annual 2008. The title this year was “There’s No Catalog like No Catalog”, and we are remarkably lucky that we were able to get a full recording of the debate for podcast here on LITABlog. Enjoy!
Isn't it great to be in the library… wherever that is?
President’s Program: Isn’t it great to be in the library… wherever that is? Sunday June 29th, 2008, 4:00pm – 5:30pm (I apologize in advance for the level of detail here. I wasn’t able to get online and post right away and so I’m working from my handwritten notes – which are difficult to read at times and a bit cryptic at others. So, while I think a few statements are worth providing, I can’t recall the exact context of them. Rather than trying to guess, I’m simply providing them as-is.) Joseph Janes, from the University of Washington and columnist for American Libraries, kicked off this session with a presentation about the evolution of libraries and how we can define what they are, followed by a panel discussion by the It’s All Good blogging team. Joseph Janes presentation: The evolution of libraries isn’t necessarily tied to technology. Instead, it relates to…
LITA Top Technology Trends
This is going to have to be more of an experiential post than a factual one, I’m afraid… I attended the Top Tech Trends session and it held my attention throughout the whole thing – everything did. From the larger than life images of Karen Coombs and Sarah Houghton-Jan on one screen that flanked the live panel to the scrolling meebo chat room on the other screen, there was a lot to pay attention to! Karen and Sarah have already written up their trends on this very blog, so I see no point in duplicating their efforts – they can say it much better than I can anyway!
Keeping Your Computers Running Session
In the one of the last session slots of the ALA Conference was a gem of a program geared toward smallish public libraries who have either no IT Department or a very small one. Diane Neal, North Carolina Central University, Brenda Hough, MaintainIT Project and Jennifer Lee Peterson, WebJunction were the panelists for the presentation. The session went from specific things that librarians can do to keep their technology running to a broader look at what resources are out there for troubleshooting specific issues, finding “best practices” and using free tools to plan and maintain your technology at a higher (library-wide, as opposed to a single machine) level. It started off with Diane giving a very nuts-and-bolts presentation about basic PC, printer and network troubleshooting. She went through the basic troubleshooting steps for your PC (reboot, check cables, discover “where it hurts” on the machine…) and then did the same…
The Open Library: Realizing the Promise and Mitigating the Peril
Cindy Gibbon, Access Services Coordinator of Multnomah County Library (MCL), Oregon, opened the discussion about privacy and intellectual freedom in a web 2.0 world by sharing the results of a study of MCL’s users. Some things MCL users said they want: Notification when requested items are added to the catalog Public comments and recommendations of books read Blogs, podcasts, reference via instant messaging Text message alerts Saved lists of titles checked out or of interest RSS feeds Ability to communicate online with other library patrons She then shared some compelling data from the December 2007 Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey about the ubiquity of mobile communications technologies. The bottom line: MCL patrons want a 2.0 library experience. Some library patrons indicated that it is important to them that their library records remain private, and some did not. Cindy pointed out that it is librarians’ responsibility to protect patrons’…
You Know FRBR, But Have You Ever Met FRAD
Time and Location: Sunday, 1:30 pm – 5:30 pm, Anaheim Convention Center, 210 A-C One would expect for something that old (in Google time) such as Ferber (FRBR), which has been around since 1998, to have spawned some kin. Meet Fred, er, FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data). And they didn’t tell you that in this program, you also will meet Farsar (FRSAR – Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records). Actually, the first hour and a half of this program dealt with updates on activities at the Library of Congress (by Dave Reser) and at OCLC (by Robert Bremer). The next hour and a half was devoted to the main program topic and the last hour was for a meeting of the LITA/ALCTS Authority Control Interest Group. The cataloging and metadata crowd must have been conferenced out by this time because attendance was low compared to the sessions Getting Ready…